


Go Apart To Come Back

by StarkWolf



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A Sorry Mix Up of Show and Book Elements, BAMF Brienne of Tarth, Brienne of Tarth is the Best, Canon Continuation, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fic Exchange Yaaayyyyyy, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Jaime Lannister Has Issues, Jaime Lannister Needs a Hug, Lady Stoneheart is her Own Warning, Mutual Pining, Timeline Messed Up Please Excuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:34:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25769020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarkWolf/pseuds/StarkWolf
Summary: Brienne of Tarth becomes an Oathbreaker just like Jaime Lannister when she drives her sword through her Lady's throat. Jaime Lannister cannot understand why on earth will she do that. And he hates that he cannot get answers out of the Wench who is just off spending her time with a despicable knight called Hyle Hunt of all people.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 66
Kudos: 149
Collections: Jaime x Brienne Fic Exchange 2020





	Go Apart To Come Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SeeThemFlying](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeThemFlying/gifts).



> Prompt: Brienne has just killed Lady Stoneheart for Jaime. He is very confused as to why she has done this for him, so goes and confronts her about it. A conversation about feelings (and possibly more) ensues.

To be fair to Ser Hyle, almost all men inadvertently annoyed Jaime Lannister.

But Ser Hyle was aiming high and aiming right to join the likes of Ronnet Connington at an admirable speed.

Currently, as they sat in a boggy swamp across their meager fire somewhere in the dense of the Riverlands, the utterly despicable excuse of a man was getting a bit of bread out of Brienne’s chin, his unremarkable and droopy face feigning attention as if it was the only thing between him and her swollen, chapped lips. And the Wench was _letting him_.

Jaime’s skin prickled at the familiar ease between them.

Lately, his skin prickled every time he saw the hedge knight and the Wench in close quarters ( _and ask Jaime there were a lot of those moments in the scarce five days since the fateful day_ ) but those were the thoughts of another day, preferably another lifetime.

Jaime wondered how quick the Wench would swat his hand away if he was mimicking Ser Hyle and his ghost hand twitched once, then twice.

Jaime willed his mind to turn to the meager portion of the almost burnt to ashes rabbit. The winds were sweeping hard in the Riverlands, and the increasing snowfall everyday made it harder to catch any game. He supposes he should be grateful for the fare they managed for the night, but as his teeth bit into the meat, Ser Hyle made a great show of leaning into Brienne and whispering something in her ear, uncomfortably close to her, and Jaime’s food turned ashen in his mouth.

The lad of thirteen ( fourteen mayhaps! ) beside him was inconspicuously unbothered to the unspoken complexity of the situation the other three members of the party found themselves in, and for a moment Jaime envied his luck and obliviousness deeply.

Deeply disturbed and trapped by the workings of his own mind, Jaime decided to go and feed the horses, away from the quagmire for a while. He got to his feet swift and prompt, handed over his leftover portion, which to be fair, was almost whole, to Podrick, who by the looks of it, was clearly ravenous ( as they all should be, even him! ) and went at his share at the speed of the wind.

“Here, Pod, the rabbit is not agreeing with my stomach, I am afraid. First day out of your deathbed, you deserve more game to celebrate being alive I presume”

From the periphery, he could feel Brienne’s eyes have shot up to him.

Pod meanwhile, looked at him expectantly, eyes going wide at his offer.

“Ss..Sser, Thank You, But you.. have.. hardly eaten.”

Jaime shoved his portion into his hands and scoffed at the lad.

“Take it before I change my mind and feed it to the horses instead.”

He said and looked at Brienne once, who quickly looked away as if caught in stealing bread.

Jaime seethed and turned away and walked away from her sight.

He walked up to his horses, fast and furious, and took one breath, then another.

Not for the first time, he thought, he didn’t belong here. _More so now._

But as much as his _very reasonable_ mind argued, he could not well just walk away to his camp and then march to the capital.

Though, as per the floating pieces of news reaching him, _the capital needed him more than ever now._

_I need you as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you._

But he could not leave without his answers. And the Wench wouldn’t give them. So they were at an odd impasse, surely not for the first time, Jaime mused.

Reluctant footsteps followed him and disrupted his thoughts. The horses shifted on their hooves. But remained more or less unbothered. It was someone familiar, not a threat, then.

If it was Hyle with his smug face, Jaime would turn around and greet him with a warm welcome from his golden hand, he decided. This was no time for keeping courtesies. Hyle was an enemy. And a lowly one at that. Why he didn’t know. And didn’t bother to ask himself again.

“You haven’t eaten at all.” The wench’s voice rang out clear in the crisp cold air as the shush of evening fell around them.

“And you haven’t forgone your skill of stating the absolute obvious, at all. Some things never change, I gather.” Jaime turned to look at the Wench.

Brienne opened her mouth once, willing words to catch up, without a doubt, and closed it like a fish.

And then she did what she has been doing since the last three days at an alarming rate.

She looked away from him, _again_.

Jaime could hardly bear it.

“You must want to know why I am still here.” Jaime implored.

“Yes.”

“Why did you kill Stoneheart?”

The Wench looked at him incredulously.

Every time he asked this question, and he has asked it thrice over five days, she has given him the same wide-eyed, surprised look, as if he was asking an obvious question, as if breaking an oath was a natural thing to Brienne, of all people.

Jaime would have believed so, believed that the ways of the world in her time away has completely morphed her into a bitter cynic had he not seen Brienne utterly shattered at her erstwhile lady’s death at her own hands. For the first two nights, she did not even blink, looking at the fire in an otherworldly trance, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, despair and dismay, guilt and remorse wreaking havoc over her already compromised features. Then the exhaustion caught up with her, as much as the starvation, and ultimately there was her rising concern over Pod’s deteriorating health that finally snapped her out of her eternal damnation and take charge of the surrounding.

“She..She hung Pod.”

“Cut the nonsense Brienne. Hyle and Pod were free men by then. And even though I am an old cripple, and I know your _extremely_ low opinion of me, you knew I wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. An almost dead man against a dead woman, daresay I might have even prevailed. You could have been well away by then. But here you are, an oathbreaker, just like me.” Jaime meant his words to bruise and cut better than his sword could now, and so it did. Her shoulders slouched and a distinct resignation and hurt took over her marred features. At other times he would have been satisfied with himself with his words hitting its mark, but this was not the other time, nor was it any other person, it was _Brienne._

 _This woman won’t even let me feel respite of petty victories, what has she turned the Lion of Lannister into?_

_You are no more a lion than she is an Oathbreaker_ , his traitorous mind retorted.

Jaime gritted his teeth in annoyance.

Brienne looked at him then, and he could see her internal armor flitting back into pieces, the glint of steely determination of her eyes before she spoke.

“I am not like you Ser. Would that have been, I would have slept a little better. There were no innocents to save, Pod and Hyle were safe like you said. And you would have yourself taken down an old Northman and a dead yet undead lady, and yet.” She breathed.

They have been lucky in that aspect, Jaime knew at the bottom of his heart. A wolf pack ravaged the camp the night before they arrived, and left Stoneheart’s band of outlaws utterly displaced, whatever remained of them after the wolves had their feast, anyway. The-once-that-had-been Lady Catelyn and her loyal Northman took shelter in the caves, Hyle and Pod were already stationed there, the boy sick to his guts. When they arrived on the morn on what looked like a war-ravaged part of the forest post the assault of the wolves, Stoneheart had released Hyle and Pod, given Brienne her leave harshly and asked the fellow northern rebel to cut his throat. And then Brienne had slashed Oathkeeper through hers in the space of a heartbeat.

Even when Catelyn Stark was spewing venom at him in his cold dungeon cells at Riverrun, and been a moment of ( Good? Bad? ) judgement away from severing his head from his body, Jaime had admired the woman. For her strength, for her fierceness, for her unwavering love for her children and the honesty that shone through her, she did not wear any invisible ghostly badge of honor that Ned trotted about in, she was flesh and blood and flawed, and yet more world-wise than Ned Stark has ever managed to be. She was a compassionate willful woman, not to be cowed down by the men of the world, and he had always appreciated that, if not anything else.

But Lady Stoneheart was another thing altogether. An undead creature sewed out of the fabric of revenge and bloodthirst. Even thinking of her and Lady Catelyn at the same breath made the bile rise at the back of his throat. He concentrated back on Brienne. Measuring her words, searching for an opening until he found one.

“So an extravagant show of self-pity is your best defense now, Lady Brienne, how craven of you” he spat.

Brienne narrowed her eyes at him, for a second the deep wound of his words showing blatantly in the blue of her eyes.

“Why are you here Ser? If you are so disgusted at the mere presence of me. I deserve your bitterness, I deserve your unkindness, I have done naught but betrayed you. I have tricked you into coming to Lady Stoneheart with me, endangering your life, whatever our… understanding had been prior to that, all but thrown away as rotten corpses to the crows. Your army is waiting for you. Your King.. Your sis…your family is waiting for you and yet here you are. If you mean to punish me with your continuing presence then so be it, I will take it as gracefully as I can bear. But I would implore you to not put yourself through such a trial on my account Ser. Trust me I rue the day I showed up at Pennytree with a lie on my lips, I would have hanged had it not been for Pod. I condemn myself enough for the both of us. You need not suffer more on my account.” Brienne all but yelled at him, and he let her words wash over him, but instead of soothing, they only gnawed more aggressively at his insides.

“And what would your option be Wench? If not betray me? You clearly can’t let innocents die on the account of the Kingslayer. No. That would be decidedly un-knightly. They hung you Brienne…” he took a deep breath…”They hung you. You have flesh peeping out of that sorry excuse of the poultice, I don’t know what else _you_ have suffered on _my_ account and a drunken oath given at sword point to a woman who is definitely better off dead now. Between the two of us, if there is anyone who can claim giving in to despicable self-pity brought out of their own bad choices, there is a clear winner and it is me. And I don’t derive any pleasure out of you stewing in your made up guilt, that is not my way, it is Cersei’s. I don’t hold you guilty in the first place. I decided to come with you knowing you were lying to me. You are the poorest of liars in the Seven Kingdoms for God’s sake, don’t flatter yourself thinking otherwise. Or is that your play now..?” he took one step towards her, then another, until their toes were touching. “Pretending to be drowning in a river of misery and self inflicted guilt so that you can evade my questions?” he was seething with rage. For an old cripple, Jaime Lannister was going through quite a bout of intense feelings. He doesn’t remember what incited such disconcerting rage in him last. The world was a grey fog of bitter realisations for the likes of him.  
  
The air was thick between them. As _thick as the smoke from the baths of Harrenhal._ The moment grew heavy on Jaime’s tongue, the biting cold and the thrusting winds doing nothing to dampen the hot white rage flowing inside his veins

“Why, Brienne?”, he whispered, hoarsely.

Brienne looked at him then, looked at him with those seven damned blue eyes which were shining bright with challenge and defiance, and disarmed him in a swift stroke with her next words.

“I dreamed of you.” She said and turned around, her shoulders hunched as she walked away.

Jaime kept looking at her disappearing silhouette for a long time, gulping the surge of abrupt longing coming up his throat.

…………….

“The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard” Jaime said as he introduced himself to the bloody guards at the bloody gates, in his most commanding voice.

It worked, and they passed through it.

He shared a brief glance with Brienne on passing. Sharing a fleeting moment of unbridled relief and distant hope blooming in his chest. They haven’t spoken to one another since their confrontation the other night. But in this moment they were the unspoken bearers of a shared oath that had bound them for so long, a solitary witness to the other’s decidedly questionable honor.

It is a fallacy, Jaime grimaced to himself, to pin all the hopes of another honorable life on a meager girl of ten and seven, lost to the world, it would be nothing short of a miracle if she managed to survive, twice over if she was here.

_But where else could she be?_

That is what kept them going, he supposed, not the possibility of finding her here, but the sheer impossibility of her survival anywhere else in the world.

Still, it would be nothing short of a miracle.

“It is nothing short of a miracle,” he told Brienne later at his assigned chamber, as the group huddled together for supper along with Baelish’s representative hostess, “that Littlefinger managed to put a bastard on the stoic Lady Catelyn and managed to keep it a secret.”

The young girl Baelish claimed to be his natural-born daughter dropped the kitchen knife sending it clanging against the glass platter. Her knuckles turned white.

“Why, that explains why sweet Alayne here has such distinct Tully blue eyes and cheekbones, wouldn’t it?, I have been looking at Tully eyes constantly for a year and a half. It haunts my sleep. “ He looked at the girl.

She looked back at him, alarmed.

“Or should I call you Lady Stark? The whole dark dye makes your hair look distinctly northern. You look like Ned and Catelyn’s daughter now more than ever, My Lady. Tell Lord Baelish, black was a poor choice for subterfuge.”, Jaime let himself smile now. Master manipulator Baelish, undone by his own overconfidence, much like Jaime himself, he remembered Zollo’s arakh with a shudder.

Let it be said Jaime Lannister was a man who learned from his own mistakes, if not anything else.

Sansa Stark tried to bolt, but dear Pod was faster as he barred the door to the chambers.

It was a long night, that one, making the girl understand that he wasn’t here to take her back to Kings Landing, recounting every moment since the damned oath that had made him seek her out as his last vestige of honor.

But at last, it was Brienne’s steadfast recounting of their story, (her version _was_ more reliable somehow, he had to give her that, even though they both said the same thing and omitted the same thing, one undead lady) and Pod’s familiarity that made the girl reconsider.

They would flee the next night to Castle Black, to her bastard brother.

Jaime slept better, for whatever little part of the night remained. Only to be disrupted too soon by grave news.

Kevan Lannister was dead.

Mace Tyrell was dead.

Margaery Tyrell was dead.

How? How? How?  
  
_Wildfire._

Tommen has taken severely ill, crestfallen at the sudden passing of his wife.

Cersei Lannister prevailed at her trial, a newly arisen monstrous knight at her heel, Ser Robert Strong, they called him, and she now rules the seven kingdoms at Tommen’s behest.

 _And, Jaime Lannister no longer remained in the Kingsguard_.

Baelish assaulted him with the blows one after the other. His face a grim image of soft sorrow. Jaime knew wicked men well enough to identify the sadistic pleasure he was concealing oh so carefully.

He wanted to grab the man by his throat and choke the life out of him.

He abruptly stood and went outside in the courtyard instead.

Cersei Lannister was the queen of seven kingdoms, the throne she so loved and so desperately sought was hers, and the only thing keeping it from remaining hers forever was their sweet son, who was in ill health.

And _wildfire_.

A chill went down Jaime’s insides.

Jaime Lannister, no longer Kingsguard.

His cloak was long sullen, and now the chance of redeeming the white out of his grasp.

He tried to breathe.

“Ser?”

A voice interrupted his trail of dismal thoughts.

“Ser Jaime!”

He looked to see the Stark girl behind him.

“Lord Baelish, My Lord Father, was asking, if he should make preparations for your journey south, Ser.” , she asked him with a blank face, but her eyes were trying to say something more.

Jaime nodded his head solemnly and looked at the girl.

Whatever Sansa Stark saw there, in his face, unsettled her visibly.

“I… I promised your Mother.” He babbled on, ungraciously.

“I think I should see to it, to your safety. But the capital…Tommen…My..” Jaime tried to continue but didn’t know how to.

Sansa glanced around her surreptitiously, and made her way towards the alley on the other side of the courtyard, beside the armory.

He followed the girl, he knew not why.

The alleyway gave way to the back end of the castle and another deserted hallway. Sansa stopped and turned around to look at him.

It was now that he could see, the unshed tears in her eyes.

“Margaery was a good queen, a kind queen.” Her voice held tremor. He felt it in the empty space.

An image flashed in front of his eyes, two young girls strolling around the gardens of the Red Keep, arm in arm.

Sansa Stark has only seen horrors in her short life, even an iota of kindness bestowed upon her must seem like a sea of unbidden empathy.

The defense for Cersei came up to his throat voluntarily, _Margaery Tyrell was a scheming whore who would do anything to stay in power_ , but he swallowed it down.

No. Cersei will not dictate his words now. After this.

He only nodded.

“And Tommen would be a good king if your sister hadn’t intervened.”

He looked up at her, sharply now.

He couldn’t see an innocent maid on ten and seven now, pale and frail, the girl in front of him had steel in her spine, wolf fangs bared.

“Come with us till White Harbour, We will sail for Eastwatch by the Sea, You sail for King’s Landing. Lady Brienne has repeatedly vouched for your honor, your brother always spoke of you in high esteem. Would you bid them wrong, My Lord?”

It is Tyrion’s mention that claws at his heart, and he comes undone.

“My brother, is a kinslayer, I freed him and he went back to murder my father. None of this would have happened if he lived.” He spat now, the girl’s heavy words hurting his head.

“None of the tragedies that befell my family would have happened if he died a bit earlier, My Lord. Your father wrongly accused his own son of murdering Joffrey. What did you expect?”

“Wrongly?” Jaime scoffed, “Good to see you are so eager to trust your Lord Husband implicitly, foundations of a strong marriage I believe, except that you are in the wrong. He confessed to me that he killed Joffrey himself.”

“He didn’t.” Sansa Stark cut him short, “It wasn’t him. I know it in my heart. And you know it in yours.”

“The only people responsible for the downfall of your family is your family itself. It’s what your father, you, Cersei, and even Tyrion, different and kind as he is but a Lannister nonetheless, it is what all of you have wrought upon yourselves. And the children suffer; the innocents suffer, because of it. I want to believe that you want to do good by your oath to my Mother, I want to believe you are the person Lady Brienne and Tyrion and Podrick claims you are. And running away won’t prove it.”

“I _would be running away_ from my oath to protect you, in order to do it. What kind of a man would that make me?”

“A better man, if you manage to stop the carnage unraveling in the capital, My Lord. You know what you have to do. If you want to protect me, truly, protect me, go and eliminate the greatest threat against me, Ser. The rest is your decision. Or your justification of whatever decision you take. I would see you at supper.” She said and left, dainty footsteps and skirts swishing across the floor.

Jaime has known enough kings and queens in his lifetime to know that one day that girl would rule a kingdom.

……

Sleep evades him. So he lies on his back and stares at the starless sky.

Tomorrow, he would make his way to Kings Landing, while the rest of the party sails to Eastwatch.

He knows it is the right thing to do. He just doesn’t know what else to do to make it right once he reaches Kings Landing.

He supposes he is just feigning helplessness. He always knew what to do.

Jaime had somehow managed to send correspondence to Addam to march to Kings Landing. He hopes for all their sakes he had gotten the raven.

The fire crackles in the distance. It is Hyle’s turn to take the watch. But he knows the irregular breathing pattern a stone’s throw away from him. He knows the Wench lies wide awake.

And he aches for his absolution.

Promptly he stands up, walks over to her, nudges her feet with his own.

He could see Hyle glare at him from the corner of his eyes, but whatever he was opening his mouth to say doesn’t come out as the Wench sheds the Mummer’s act of sleeping and bolts upright.

“Ser Jaime?”

“Spar with me. _One last time_.”

He was expecting a barrage of protests, instead, she nods, at once and gets up.

“We will be going to the clearing by the Woods. Shout if anything untoward happens” she firmly instructs Hyle before shedding the tiredness of her demeanor.

He gapes at them. Doesn’t respond.

Jaime bites back a chuckle.

 _If you think you can keep the Wench from a fight, you are not a worthy suitor, Ser_.

The Wench disarms him in the flash of his eye the first three times.

The fourth time, he ends up shoved in the dirt with a kick to his breastbone.

The fifth time, he manages to block a rapid thrust in marvelous speed. He doesn’t even get to gloat for a moment as Brienne kicks his feet from under him.

By the eighth-time, he has held his own enough to last about five minutes.

The ninth time has some semblance of a fight, and at the end, the Wench almost straddles him and shouts at his face to yield while Jaime realizes with a jolt to his gut, that time is running out.

So he throws her off balance with all his might, stands up, and says “If I win this fight, you give me what I want from you.” in his most suggestive, gravelly and distracting voice, his blood humming in his veins.

Brienne _is_ too distracted for a moment, eyes widening in alarm, and it is all the opening he needs to hit her wrist with the gold appendage and kick her feet from under her.

Oathkeeper goes tumbling down in the grass as he tackles Brienne to the ground.

“Yield”

He says, his voice a hair above a whisper.

Brienne continues looking at him wide-eyed, shocked at the turn of events. Her breathing turns shallow and rough. And if he were the man he was once before, or truly known Brienne to be a shy maid pinned under a man she has hidden ungracious thoughts about, he would swear the shiver than runs through her had nothing to do with the ferocity of the winds that suddenly seem to knock the breath out of his lungs.

But it’s just cold. And Brienne’s warm. He presses on.

Tomorrow he will ride away to his doom. And he will never see her again. Feel her breath fanning his face. Burn under the gaze of her bluest of blue eyes looking up at his. All her ugliness. All her scars. And her hopeless hope against better judgment and integrity and steely honor and this stubborn, stable, mad and steadfast, brave and determined, yet shy and skittish as a newborn foal Wench, he will never have her again, have _this_ ever in his life.

He presses on until his forehead is against hers, the breadth of his sword separating their faces.

“Yield” he begs, pleads desperately.

Brienne shoves him away instead and he lands flat on his back against the muddy ground.

“What do you want Jaime?” she rasps out, indignant, furious.

He sits upright, the blood thrumming through his body keeping the weariness at bay.

“You know what I want. I want an answer. Brienne. I am riding away to my death tomorrow. Grant a dead man his last wish”

Brienne stands up in a flash, walks over to him, pulls him up by the collar of his jerkin, and towers over him with fire in her blue eyes and the ugliest scowl in her face.

“You will not die. You dare not. You cannot.” She grits out.

“Why? What does it matter to you I live or die? Our oath is fulfilled. You will watch over the Stark girl and I will do whatever the hell I will do, live or die, it’s my wish Wench” Jaime sneers back.  
  
Brienne releases her hold on him and stumbles back. Now he could see the tears glistening on her lashes. Jaime knows he was being unkind, but he has never much known how to be anything else.

“I killed her because she wanted to kill you. And I cannot stand the thought of anyone wanting to kill you. I cannot stand the thought of taking a breath in a world without you. Loyalty means nothing. Honor means nothing. It all fades to nothing when it comes to you, Ser, don’t bother me asking the why and how of it, all the seven Gods know I have tried asking myself and failed. I suppose there is no legitimate explanation to those questions except one. I am just the ugliest maid in Westeros, pretending at playing swords, hopelessly in love with a beautiful golden knight in shining armor who would never so much as look at her way twice if he could. Now run away Ser. These words would be enough to make you so.” She said and attempted to move away from him, the clear winner of their spar of words, for once.

Jaime has always been a sore loser. He has never been one of those people who have had the grace to acquiesce with dignity. Even with his last breath, he looks to move to the thick of the fighting, even when it is ill-advised, _especially_ if it is ill-advised.

“Jaime, Brienne, My name if Jaime. And have you ever known me to run away from a fight?” he said and closed the distance between their lips.

When he pulls away, her cheeks are redder than he has ever seen them.

_The blush is mine, Ser Hyle. Try to put it away._

“Jaime?” Brienne asks, he doesn’t know what, but he kisses her again in response and hopes that the answer she seeks she would find inside his mouth.

Brienne might have won the battle. But Jaime won the war.

…….

Then morning came, as it inevitably comes for all star crossed lovers.

“If I don’t come back, know it’s on your head,” he tells the Stark girl.

Sansa looks at him for a fraction of a second, then passes a knowing glance to Brienne who has been watching them from a distance while instructing young Podrick to board the ship but immediately looks away when she catches them looking at her, and says. “I think you just might.” And Jaime wonders what exactly it was that this girl and his brother shared for her looks to be so knowing and familiar to him.

“I don’t even know where you sorry lot will be.” Jaime shrugs away his thoughts and looks at Brienne once again, hoping his voice doesn’t catch and his heart doesn’t falter.

“I will be home Ser Jaime. You will find us there. ” Sansa replies definitively and a chill goes down his spine while she gives him a courteous smile and walks away.

He makes his way towards Brienne, takes her by her arm away from the bustling crowd and the blaring horns to a secluded shade on the other side of the dock.

“My Lady, we should be better at bidding goodbyes by now.”

“Jaime..I..” she struggles and then looks up at him with such longing he can’t think of anything else and kisses her deep and sweet in broad daylight.

“You were saying?” he hums against her ears, when he lets her go, thinking how it might be so cruel and selfish of him to stake a claim at her kisses knowing they might never meet and subject her to even more of the wistfulness and burning yearning that he feels himself, but he is a not that good a man and he will take whatever he can get, and not regret it one ounce.

“Ser Jaime…I…I just want you to know I am not…That I don’t expect you to… I haven’t got any ideas about you…about us…and it is okay when you go there…when you see her… it is okay..” she fumbles through her words but Jaime flinches and gets away from her in a flash.

_Cersei. It always comes back to Cersei._

For a second he cannot hide the hurt he feels inside his chest, thinking that Brienne would think of him so low, so ready to abandon what they shared in the flick of an eye.

But his rational mind argues back, isn’t that’s what he has always been? How his resolve has dissolved to nothing time and again with Cersei in front of him, she has pulled the leash and he has gone yapping. Brienne knows him. Knows what he has always been. And has loved him in spite of it.

It is then that he decides that he would prove her wrong. The man Brienne loves would be a fool to not do right by her. And so he will.

He approaches her again, cradles her face between his hands.

“My Lady, I know my word is not worth much, and yes I am going back to Kings Landing, but I will not go back to her. On my honor. And yours. If I die, know that I died a man with my heart belonging to the stubborn, mulish, magnificent and honorable to a fault Maid of Tarth”  
  
“Jaime, Don’t”, a solitary tear spills out of her left eye and he rushes forward to kiss it back.

When their ship leaves the dock, Brienne settles her eyes on him one last time and Jaime can’t help but look away, his own eyes stinging.

He turns back determined that no, in spite of all his talks otherwise, he will not die, vowing to himself that he will duel with the Stranger itself on a field to get back to her one last time, and for good.

…….

Brienne looks out from the battlements.

The Lannister Army is a column of illustrious red and gold, a splash of colors against the wintery landscape, marching up the Kingsroad, marching up to Winterfell and her breath catches in her throat.

“They have kept their word, they have come to aid the North.” Jon Snow rasps out with his usual broody voice, but Brienne knows the twinge of relief underneath his words.

“ _He_ has kept his word,” Sansa says to Jon, but looks directly at Brienne instead.

Brienne avoids it.

For the year that has passed between the night Jaime kissed her and now, kings have fallen and queens have risen, and direwolf banners adorn the walls of Winterfell once again.

Rumors reached her. Rumors that the Kingslayer killed his sister lover. Rumors that the Kingslayer and his sister lover have fled to Casterly Rock at the sight of the Targaryen dragons, and stay there as man and wife. Some say the Queen is a captive at Kings Landing. Some say she has jumped from the tallest window of the tower-like her last son did and haunts the Red Keep ever since.

Brienne doesn’t know which is true. None of them? All of them?

She can only pray for the boy’s soul to the Seven. That part is not a rumor. That is the truth. Confirmed by Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen.

There has been no word from Jaime. Until a raven to Sansa.

_The Lannister army marches North, to fight against the winter that threatens to crash on the realm._

Signed, Jaime Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West.

What deal could Jaime have possibly brokered with the Dragon Queen to warrant him his seat at Casterly Rock?  
  


After all, he is the one who drove his sword against her father’s back, marking the absolute fall of the Targaryen dynasty.  
  
Brienne knew the story. She knew his noble intentions. She also knows by now that the nobler the intention, the harsher the punishment.

She thinks of all and everything, to keep the whirlwind of longing pooling in her stomach, threatening to sweep her away.

And then she sets her eyes on him leading his army.

………

He finds her at the battlements after a customary audience has been granted to him at the Great Hall, and after Jaime has requested to speak alone with the Lady of Winterfell.

Brienne has all but fled to the Battlements, keeping her emotions at bay.

“Lady Brienne,” he says and Brienne closes her eyes and feels the harsh winds on her face, to keep her feet grounded and asking all the Seven Gods to give her the courage to look at his golden face once again.

“Ser Jaime,” she says but doesn’t move.

_Not yet. Not now._

“Glad to see you hale and hearty even in the midst of the harshest winter, My Lady, my limbs are frozen off and my feet can’t fucking feel anything. But look at how the dour North suits the dour Maid of Tarth.”

Now she turns to glare at him.

Jaime chuckles and closes the distance between them.

“Warm me up, Wench.”

Brienne could feel the blush creeping up on her marred face but manages to put on what she hopes is a dangerous scowl even though her heart beats faster than it ever has, even with all the relief and the anger, warmth and sorrow flows abundantly through her veins.

“Marry me tonight,” Jaime speaks again.

Now Brienne misses her footing and stumbles backward.

Jaime chuckles more, green eyes shining with mirth, and is that hope?

_No. It can’t be._

Brienne flinches away.

“I do not appreciate the jest, Ser.” She looks to walk away.

_It_ _hurts to stay. It hurts to go away._

“What are you on about?” Jaime rages in an instant and catches her by her arm and shoves her against him.

Tears are stinging her eyes. Her vision is blurred. Jaime softens.

“My Lady, I have crossed the continent from one end to another to come to this frozen hell to ask for your hand. I know I am far from my golden days, nothing but an old cripple with a shit for reputation, but I am the Lord of Casterly Rock, still the wealthiest house in the realm. I am not the worst match for you to flinch away so.”

“Jaime?” she says and tears fall from her eyes now, freely, her breath catches in her throat.

“Brienne?” he says and he kisses her. Kisses her tears away while whispering her name like a prayer, like she is his salvation.

_Brienne. Brienne. Brienne._

The soldiers manning the barracks stare at them.

Stare at an ugly, scarred maid and a golden knight of the legends entwined together.

And for once, Brienne of Tarth doesn’t care.

“I have asked your Lady the permission to wed you by the Godswood or the Sept tonight, whatever faith you keep. I am not jesting My Lady. It is as far from jest as it can be. After all, how long do you expect a man to keep to his celibacy _after_ he has been released from his vows? It has been more than a year since I kissed a Maid under the moonlight in Riverlands for Seven’s sake!” Jaime’s voice sweep over her skin, low chuckles, that reverberate through her entire being while he hums into her ears.

“Celibacy?” Brienne gulps, “Cers..Cersei?” she manages to stutter out..

“Rotting in the Black Cells in the Red Keep and surely plotting to take the throne back, alone. She is the Dragon Queen’s prisoner. I handed her over myself and bagged Casterly Rock for reward. At the end, I turned out to be a more scheming Lannister than Cersei herself. Aren’t you proud of me?” he grins at her, and Brienne ignores the gloom and hurt in his eyes as he speaks of it.

If Jaime has sacrificed the woman he loved all his life, Cersei Lannister must have done all it takes to warrant it and more.

But that is another conversation, for another time.

Jaime is here. He is here for her saying all these things. In the end.

She keeps staring at him, holding him, even if it is to make herself believe that it is not a pleasant dream of spring.

“Now, are you done questioning my fidelity or do you have any more doubts? Do you want a count for the gold in Casterly Rock perhaps? If not can you please say yes Wench. Or I would drag you to the nearest grim corridor and fuck the brains out of you, all my vows to have you in a featherbed all but forsaken. And then…”

Brienne turns red. There is a heat sweeping at her and a low coil which unravels deep in her belly from his scandalous, filthy words.

_And my heart is full._

“Do you ever shut up, Ser?”

Jaime stops. Pulls his forehead against hers and whispers “Make me.”

So she makes him stop. She kisses him full in the mouth.

_Yes._

She says through her kisses.

Later, they get married in the Godswood.

And Sansa Stark beams. Podrick smiles through his tears. Hyle Hunt grimaces but doesn’t say a word.

…………

The World is ending, one day at a time, the war of their lives is upon them, and yet Jaime smiles, unbidden, filled with warmth as the Wench, his wife now, methodically tears up his bread to pieces.

His eyes sting of happiness.

Tyrion makes a face at him across the table.

_Aren’t you a besotted fool in love?_

He all but says and Jaime could only widen the smug grin on his face.

Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth will walk to face away the long night, sword in hand, as man and wife.

If they die, they die. But before they will fuck and love and fight.

And Jaime Lannister will die a happy man. A man in love going down with a sword in his hand.

What more could he ever ask for?

“What are you so smug and happy about?” the Wench scoffs at him.

“Nothing… you”

She rolls her eyes and takes a bite of the bread.

A part of it is caught in her chin. Jaime lifts his good hand to take it off her face and catches Hyle Hunt’s glare at them from the far end of the hall.

He grins back. He doesn’t dislike the man so much anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't want to give away much and I am sure I have made a grand mess of it but I just hope against all hope that SeeThemFlying likes this because I am a huge fan of their work. <3 <3 <3 . So Phew!!! Posted and all. It is tough for an ADHD ridden self-deprecating fic writer but hey! Here we are.
> 
> Just to make sure whenever I write Jaime and Brienne I do tend to contain a generous amount of smut but this one turned out to be so chaste. I just hope nobody is as disappointed with this fic as I am but it was what the fic demanded of me and I am my keyboard's slave.
> 
> Also I have freely dappled in both Cannon and Show elements, because I could and I am sorry if I have pissed off fans of either or both parties with these liberties. I almost apologize more than Podrick Payne huh?
> 
> Anyway, like I said, I really hope SeeThemFlying likes it even if it is a little bit, and my day will be made.  
> Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. 
> 
> P.S.: English is not my first language. Please please please bear with the mistakes.


End file.
